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  • How did the USA get guns during the Revolutionary War?

    The Revolutionary army got weapons from the French, which secretly smuggled them to the USA to destabilize the British, and the Frenchman who did the work was one of the most fascinating people in history. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais not only wrote The Marriage of Figaro, he played a pivotal role in the American Revolution:

    Beaumarchais was given the go ahead to form a company as a front to cover the clandestine activities. Roderigue Hortalez and Company was “set up as a ‘black’operation” to buy munitions from the French government on credit, sell them to the Americans, and then reimburse the government, thereby disposing of its surplus equipment at a tidy profit.

    As a result of Beaumarchais:

    Armaments and supplies arrived for the Continental Army, which was largely clothed, provisioned, and armed from the supplies Beaumarchais was able to procure. Historian Simon Schama referred to Beaumarchais as the “startlingly aggressive and enterprising propagandist for the Americans,” who “fitted out an entire private navy and armaments for the rebels and whose own pocket made up the difference between the escalating cost of French assistance and secret royal disbursements.”

    Read the entire thing here, or if you’re particularly interested, read Improbable Patriot, a fascinating biography of the life of Beaumarchais.

  • The USA’s Declaration did something no other document had done to that point

    The Declaration of Independence was:

    the first successful declaration of independence in world history, [and] its example helped to inspire countless movements for independence

    The founders wrote the Declaration as a long argument, establish their rationale for forming a country. First, they listed principles that they recognized as self-evident, which they used as a framework for making their claims. Then they listed grievances against the king as their justification for independence. This was astonishingly dangerous. In fact, they had to declare independence, because:

    if they organized themselves into political bodies with which other powers could engage, then they might become legitimate belligerents in an international conflict rather than treasonous combatants within a British civil war.

    The odds of winning were stacked against them.

    no people had managed to secede from an empire since the United Provinces had revolted from Spain almost two centuries before, and no overseas colony had done so in modern times.

    By declaring independence, the writers set off a chain of unprecedented events leading to the present day:

    More than half of the 192 countries now represented at the United Nations have a founding document that can be called a declaration of independence. 

    The entire article is excellent and strongly recommended.

  • Mort Garson’s electronic magic

    Mort Garson’s electronic magic

    This Canadian-born composer was not only a mere innovator but went on to make some of the most deliriously strange and wondrous electronic compositions (and cover versions) of the 20th century. Just the fact that the phrase “occult-pop” has been used as a descriptor of his work should give you just a tiny hint of this man’s wholly unique genius.

    At some point during the mid-70s, Garson seemed to have stepped out of our shared timeline and gone drifting through parallel universes, Moog in hand, like some sort of velvet-robed cosmic surveyor. His work stopped sounding like music and instead like the inside of a haunted lava lamp filled with dead satellites and broken View-Masters. 

    Why not take a break from the algorithm? Read more about Mort Garson and his pioneering work in electronica here.

  • Have US cities really recovered from COVID?

    Overall the results are mixed (76% average recovery post pandemic) with better results in entertainment areas like Las Vegas and worst results in areas reliant on office workers, particularly workers who can work remote.

    Transit ridership is also down (<60% of 2019 levels in major downtowns like Chicago, Philly and SF), which impacts recovery.

    Best recovery is Las Vegas (103%) with Oklahoma City, Miami, and Phoenix at 90%+. The worst are San Francisco (32%), St. Louis (34%) and Portland (40%).

    Downtowns in blue states have on average recovered slower (NYC – 65%, Chicago – 62%, LA – 60%, SF – 32%) than downtowns in red states (Miami – 92%, OKC – 93%, Phoenix – 89%, Las Vegas – 103%). This is due to a variety of factors – people are leaving blue states for red ones, blue states stayed shut longer, and are more reliant on office jobs, which can be remote.

    The long term trends on what makes a city stay “cool” remain to be seen, although one thing is clear – you need exciting downtowns.

    The key takeaway — we haven’t bounced back yet, and cities with office populations will need to do additional work. Not sure what that is in the age of the remote worker — maybe rezoning and retrofitting office buildings?

    Statistics are all from Perplexity, so I’m not even sure how to cite them!

  • How to lose yourself in the “megastructure”

    If you want to get lost in an expansive megacity, check out Blame! an artwork-driven anime. Its pages of architecturally rendered pages tour the “megastructure,” an impossibly large city (the size of Jupiter’s orbit). The city is constantly being built by out-of-control builders. The way to stop them is supposedly lost.

    You’re dropped into a world that seems allergic to explanation. No names, no maps, no exposition panels. Just page after page of impossibly vast corridors, monstrous machines, and a lone, near-silent figure named Killy trudging through it all. It’s sci-fi stripped down to its steel bones. Cold, cryptic, and mesmerizing.

    But behind its wordless panels and oppressive silence, BLAME! is doing something quietly brilliant. It’s building one of the most ambitious fictional worlds in manga—just not in the way we’re used to.

    Blame! It’s everything this article suggests. Read more about this interesting manga here.

  • You can make ordinary trips more extraordinary for low cost – here’s how

    When I think of low cost trips, I think about cutting corners on something I really want and settling for a subpar experience that is more difficult and less relaxing. But what if making the trip difficult is the entire point?

    Hickman’s Hinterlands makes trips complicated on purpose, resulting in a low-cost experience that reveals the real world as it is, instead of a series of well-worn and curated travel routes filled with Instagrammers and tourists.

    outside of the most dire emergencies and the most mundane sorts of tasks, it is always my policy to choose the least convenient, most ridiculous, circuitous route to travel from point A to point B.

    For a trip through rural America, he set out to cross the distance entirely on public bus routes. This is not easy, and required pre-planning and the type of inconvenience more suited to explorers than vacationers. Rural bus routes in America aren’t well utilized, and therefore don’t easily link up. Yet they are used, and they are very much a part of America. The fact that many people can afford to bypass them doesn’t make them any less necessary.

    On the bus that took us from Watertown to Lowville, the driver openly marveled at what a strange and unorthodox idea it was for anyone to attempt what we were doing. Yet, by the same token, she seemed pleased at our ardent enthusiasm for rural public transportation —

    Kurt Vonnegut said that “Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.” It’s something I earnestly believe, because if you’re getting an itch to try something that is really unique, something is calling to you to break free of a bubble. And in the case of rural bus routes, it’s certainly an inexpensive bubble to break.

    Read about the rural public transit odyssey here.

  • Do righteous paladins still exist in today’s modern world?

    I define a paladin as a righteous fighter engaged in a quest, oblivious to anything but the completion of that holy quest. And yes, they absolutely still exist. Even at low levels.

    Back in the days of spam phone calls, strangers would deliberately interrupt you with unwanted conversations, and would be really pushy when you tried to exit politely. My brothers and I learned that it was really catastrophic if spam callers had long sales calls without conversions. So we would answer the calls, ask questions and let them talk for sometimes half an hour before declining.

    Looking back, that was immature, but we were 16 year olds without the internet who viewed our work as righteous vengeance against a faceless system.

    Paladins come in all shapes and sizes.

  • Why you should become a magician

    The way to extraordinary growth and changes often involves a fundamental ontological or ‘lens’ shift in how you see the world. Magicians are wearing not just better, but fundamentally differently shaped lenses to the rest of us. And regardless of your skills and experience, it is likely that you are a magician to someone else.

    Meeting magicians is the first step to becoming one – when you are attempting to learn implicit knowledge that by definition you don’t understand, it is important to have a bunch of examples in front of you to feed your brain’s pattern-recognition systems. This will start to change your worldview without the controlling ‘you’ explicitly approving or denying every new belief or framework….Concrete steps I take to find them include asking my most interesting friends to introduce me to their most interesting friends, going down similar rabbit holes with the bibliographies of books that excite me, and generally living in ‘explore’ mode at various points in life, while recognising that not every avenue will lead to a jackpot.

    From the always interesting Autotranslucence. Read more about magicians here.

  • The PARA Method: The Simple System for Organizing Your Digital Life in Seconds

    Imagine for a moment the perfect organizational system.

    A system that told you exactly where to put every piece of information in your life – every document, file, note, agenda, outline, and bit of research – and exactly where to find it when you needed it.

    Such a system would need to be incredibly easy to set up, and even easier to maintain. After all, only the simplest, most effortless habits endure long term.

    I use the PARA Method for everything from folders to bookmarks. Highly recommended. Learn the PARA Method of digital organization here.

  • McDonald’s around the world

    In the United States, I feel like we utilize the chain for its speed and affordability, but in a lot of places overseas, it really is a symbol of Americana and everything that it represents. Of course, sometimes that feeling is anxiety about some of our more imperialist habits, but there’s definitely still a lot of joy. I remember reading this old news story about how when Serbians got their first McDonald’s, they would taunt the opposing team’s fans at Balkan soccer matches over not having one. That kind of pride for their area having gotten a bastion of the Golden Arches is very real.

    An excellent interview throughout, sharing perspective on the role McDonald’s plays in tying together communities. Worth reading the whole thing.

  • The Most Beautiful Game Ever?

    Talking about the Artful Escape:

    It’s a love letter to countless aspects and legends of music, art, and culture, and its passion to demonstrate this is all too clear: The Artful Escape exists to be enjoyed. As with all good love letters, it also ends on a remarkably emotional crescendo.

    it’s a masterfully crafted, beautiful experience, and one that completely removes you from the world around you. 

    After I finished playing, I walked around, looking at the walls and decorations of my house. I suddenly noticed the color and design. The game is so immersive; it does that to you. If you’re interested in amazing design, read more here..

  • Making mice with two dads

    When Katsuhiko Hayashi and his colleagues announced in March that they had produced mouse pups from the cells of two male parents, the news literally floored some researchers. 

    Hayashi and his colleagues took cells from the tails of male mice, which have both X and Y sex chromosomes, and converted them into stem cells. In the process, roughly 3% of such cells spontaneously lose their Y chromosomes. The team then isolated these Y-less cells and treated them with a chemical that causes errors during cell division.

    More here.

  • How to break free of Spotify’s algorithm

    Asking an algorithm to broaden our horizons is like having lunch with a friend who claims to be open to anything but vetoes everything you suggest. “Curiosity is an active mode,” McDonald says. It’s up to us to step outside our bubble. 

    …algorithms have taken the place of magazine editors and museum curators as gatekeepers of culture….“When a human interprets a piece of art, it adds value rather than takes it away. An algorithm has no capacity to interpret,” he adds.  

    Read the whole article here. It changed my listening habits dramatically, leading me to reorganize my library to focus on albums, using the PARA method to organize it.

  • What I’m Reading

    Appendix N: Weird Tales from the Roots of Dungeons & Dragons. Older pulp fantasy is weird and interesting, and I think it’s because authors weren’t competing with cell phones. They expected the reader to fill in more with imagination. So they relied on plot less. This book absolutely delivers:

    “In ages gone,” the Sage had said, his eyes fixed on a low star, “a thousand spells were known to sorcery and the wizards effected their wills. Today, as Earth dies, a hundred spells remain to man’s knowledge”

    That’s from Jack Vance, one of the selections. He’s also the inspiration for Vecna and the D&D magic mechanic. I thought this book would overpromise, delivering a tepid selection of stories chosen without passion. Quite the contrary; the choices are excellent. Get it here.

  • Did Phillip K. Dick live in Ancient Rome?

    The article “How to Build a Universe that Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later,” by the author Phillip K. Dick, is one of the internet’s greatest treasures. He believed reality is an illusion created by the ancient Romans. He believed he was still living in Ancient Rome. One day, a girl came to his door in California:

    “What does that mean?” I asked her.

    The girl touched the glimmering golden fish with her hand and said, “This is a sign worn by the early Christians.” She then gave me the package of medication.

    In that instant, as I stared at the gleaming fish sign and heard her words, I suddenly experienced what I later learned is called anamnesis — a Greek word meaning, literally, “loss of forgetfulness.” I remembered who I was and where I was. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, it all came back to me. And not only could I remember it but I could see it. The girl was a secret Christian and so was I. We lived in fear of detection by the Romans. We had to communicate with cryptic signs. She had just told me all this, and it was true.

    For a short time, as hard as this is to believe or explain, I saw fading into view the black prison-like contours of hateful Rome. But, of much more importance, I remembered Jesus, who had just recently been with us, and had gone temporarily away, and would very soon return.

    It is worth reading the whole thing. And then, like me, to come back to it every now and then. Phillip K. Dick was a great gift to the world.

  • Why the Age of AI is the Age of Philosophy

    AI has brought a foundational subset of philosophy to the forefront of our lives — specifically, philosophy of mind and metaphysics.

    It’s taking a while, for instance, for society to get past the idea that it’s ok to assume that AI could be conscious simply because AI can tell us it’s conscious. If that were sufficient, then philosophers wouldn’t have spent so long getting hung up about whether other humans were conscious!

    The author is excited about the potential for philosophy in the coming years. Read more here..

  • Links of the Day

    Dear Mr. Vice President, Please Take Off Your Apple Watch.

    Magic the Gathering cards – with AI

  • Why hide information people want inside something that will get you into trouble?

    Johannes Trithemius was a Benedictine monk and arguably the founder of modern cryptography. Cryptography is a way to hide information, and Trithemius wrote a book about it — but he encoded this book as a false book about witchcraft.

    The false book (not the real, hidden one) got him dismissed from his job and disgraced. Why hide such useful information in such a self-damaging manner? Here”s one theory:

    If Trithemius’ intention was to avoid careful scrutiny of his manuscript, then his decision to frame it as a manual on spirit magic could not have been more inspired. Indeed, the prospect of wading through a lengthy Latin tome on necromancy was surely just as unappealing in the 1500s as it is today….how unreasonable is it to suppose that similar occult texts…might likewise be an elaborate ruse?

    Is that why he chose to hide his completely-acceptable book as something that would get him in serious trouble? The book has three volumes; the last one is still not decoded.

  • This is 81

    On aging:

    My elder daughter is two years shy of 60, and my younger daughter is 54. I like being old enough to follow the narrative of their lives. To see how they came out. You raise them, but if you die young you don’t get to see them become settled human beings with their sorrows and joys.

    …Aging has given me enormous peace of mind…now that my daughters are adults, we can have completely normal and useful conversations.

    Read more about the reflections of an 81 year old writer here.

  • Our Society is Not Prepared for this Much Awesome

    Almost all of the fears around AI that are circulating right now — fears of cheating, of “disinformation,” of scamming and spamming, etc. — all actually boil down to one thing: fear about what happens when a whole bunch of people, some of whom are stupid and/or irresponsible and/or malicious, instantly level up and get really good at making cultural objects.

    But also:

    Unexpected, AI-powered awesomeness isn’t all upside, because it’s happening too fast and breaking too many parts of our civilization that were invisibly dependent on the uneven distribution of awesomeness in the human population. So we have to figure out how to have a society where the awesomeness gradient is now a uniform distribution, and we’re already out of time.

    Here is the full link.